This paper is from Session 9C: The emerging concepts of “data science” and “big data” for educational purposes

which comes under Topic 9: Technology in statistics education

Integrating big data into the science curriculum

Presenter

• Daniel Kaplan (Macalester College, United States)

Co-authors

• Elizabeth Shoop (Macalester College, United States)
• Paul Overvoorde (Macalester College, United States)

Abstract

The contemporary practice of science widely involves “big data”: data with many cases and many variables and often with a distributed structure. The science curriculum, however, does not. Our approach to bringing big data to the science curriculum involves developing computational approaches that are powerful, engaging, and can be learned quickly with little background. We’re developing a 10-class-hour course (1 credit hour)—called Data and Computing Fundamentals (DCF)—to get students and faculty involved with big data, and able to tackle problems of realistic complexity.